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Boys brutally abused for years at Christian Brothers homes

MARK COLVIN: The Royal Commission into child sexual abuse has heard shocking evidence about a network of paedophiles at boys' homes run by the Christian Brothers. Former residents of the homes in Western Australia have described being brutally attacked.

One boy was sent to hospital after he was raped by a Christian Brother, but says he was beaten when he returned to the home. When he complained, he was abused yet again and told he had a 'dirty mind'.

Thomas Oriti reports - and a warning, this story contains disturbing details.

THOMAS ORITI: It was known as the 'Brother's Den': a bedroom used by Christian Brothers at Saint Mary's Agricultural School in Tardun for raping boys.

'VG' was a child migrant from Malta, who lived at the school four hundred kilometres north of Perth.

VG: When a brother chose a boy, the boy would often start crying straight away. At first I thought the boys were being punished for something that they had done. When the boy entered the Brother's room the curtains would be closed. You'd often hear the boys saying things like, 'No sir, please no sir'.

THOMAS ORITI: VG gave evidence today sitting next to his wife, saying the boys were never the same afterwards.

VG: They could barely walk or talk. I often also saw the boy's beds were soiled with blood. It was only later that I realised what the Brothers were doing to them.

THOMAS ORITI: It was only a matter of time before it happened to VG at the hands of a man known as Brother Simon.

VG: I had always feared this. He came to my bed and said, 'Get up and some with me.'

After I got into his room he started pulling my pyjamas down, exposing my buttocks. He pressed me down on him and I felt an agonising pain on my backside, and I realised that it wasn't just his fingers that he was hurting me with. I somehow managed to get free and a got hold of a chair and hit him.

THOMAS ORITI: VG was strapped on the head and lost consciousness. He spent six weeks in hospital. When he returned to Tardun, he told a priest what had happened during confession.

Afterwards he was taken to an office and beaten by Brother Simon with a leather strap. Another Christian Brother told him he had a 'dirty mind'.

VG: I felt isolated and desperate. It seemed suicide was the only option. I jumped from the trailer with a rope around my necků but the rope was too long. I then thought about my family in Malta and I went into a crying fit.

THOMAS ORITI: Victims have painted a shocking picture of lives in the homes, where boys were raped, tortured and routinely beaten by gangs of Christian Brothers. Homes where boys were tied to a post, just out of reach of a water tap on a hot day.

Clifford Walsh was taken to the Saint Joseph's Farm and Trade School in Bindoon when he was 10. He gave evidence wearing a shirt, with the words 'I need psychiatric help' printed on it.

CLIFFORD WALSH: We were placed in the care of the Christian Brothers, and as such, they then became our parents. Any parent who treated their children the way we were treated should've been shot.

(Applause in the chamber)

THOMAS ORITI: The hearing was told boys under the age of 10 weren't supposed to be at Bindoon. But a man known as VV was sent there in 1954 when he was nine in the back of a truck, used to collect food waste for the pigs.

Within two weeks, he was pushed onto the wheel of a tractor and raped by a Christian Brother.

VV: I was in shock, frightened and bewildered. The pain and fear were debilitating. I had no control over this situation and could not understand what was happening.

THOMAS ORITI: The perpetrator, known as Brother Angus, then dropped VV into a barrel of water and told him to clean himself. And that wasn't the end of the abuse. It continued for seven years.

VV: The worst experiences of my life were being raped and sexually abused and being physically and mentally assaulted by a number of Brothers and priests at Bindoon. Not one, not two, but nine individual sexual perpetrators.

THOMAS ORITI: He says the Brothers knew what was happening and shifted the blame.

VV: I have never been able to get over this. Assault and battery were the norm, right from the start for me. As a child I quickly learnt that telling the truth only served to cause more pain and suffering. The truth was never valid in the eyes of the adults under whose care I was assigned.

THOMAS ORITI: For VG, thoughts of his family have helped him through tough times, and he's turned to poetry to express his anguish.

VG: We longed for some closeness, some love and affection, / But all that we got was a strap and rejection. / No-one believed us when we told the truth; / Instead they chastise us, and said we were rude.

MARK COLVIN: A man known to the Royal Commission as 'VG', reading an excerpt from his poem 'Boys No More'. The reporter was Thomas Oriti.